David LaFrance, The Painter’s Palette, 2016 (Artist Website, Gallery Website)
Wood and pigment
20” x 30” x 18”
Makes a splash but doesn’t
jump. Is that a wing? A tail?
It’s hard to tell. She laps milk
from a clamshell with her fiveforked
idiom. Her crest and
jowls quiver; her horns twist
too many times around themselves
and often she pauses as if
she’s out-paced her subtle
self, but no: this is just one of
many moments not to know.
Somehow the subtle meat
self-pollinates with a sort of
tail not meant for mating.
In times of hate or great
migration, her subtle bones
slacken to newly grounded
shadow. Here she’s not scared,
just not so sure her kin have
built the path in relevant relation
to the sun and other bodies,
both celestial and un.